Former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen and former first lady of Tennessee Andrea Conte talk with Karl Dean and others at the Tennessee Democratic Party Three Star Dinner at the Wilson County Expo Center in Lebanon on June 16, 2018. Price Chambers / For The Tennessean

From left, Craig Fitzhugh (D), Randy Boyd (R), Bill Lee (R) and Karl Dean (D) prepare for the start of the gubernatorial forum on rural Tennessee issues at Lane College in Jackson, Tenn., on April 17, 2018. Yoshi James / The Commercial Appeal

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean speaks at the candidate forum at Lipscomb University's Allen Arena on May 15, 2018, in Nashville. Leadership Tennessee was the presenting sponsor of the forum. George Walker IV / The Tennessean

From left, Loretta Lynn, Jack White and Mayor Karl Dean wait for the Music City Walk of Fame ceremony to begin. Both artists were recognized with the unveiling of a commemorative sidewalk marker June 4, 2015, in Nashville. John Partipilo / The Tennessean

Dierks Bentley, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, former Nashville mayor and Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen and Del McCoury wave their towels before Game 1 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs at Bridgestone Arena on April 27, 2018, in Nashville. George Walker IV / Tennessean.com

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean releases a lake sturgeon during a ceremony to reintroduce the fish into the Cumberland River near the Shelby Bottoms Park Nature Center on April 17, 2009. Samuel M. Simpkins / The Tennessean

Karl Dean and his wife, Anne Davis, and their dog, Yaz, spend time in their Nashville home Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018. Dean and Davis have been married for 35 years.(Photo: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean )Buy Photo

Pragmatism has been the foundation of his campaign, his justification for, at times, bucking his own party and, more recently, directly appealing to Republican voters as the man who could be a necessary moderating voice in Tennessee politics.

After two terms as Nashville mayor, Dean, 63, left office in 2015 with a soaring approval rating.

His popularity held, despite politically risky decisions along the way: advocating for charter schools amid opposition from public school teachers and liberal groups; pushing the construction of a $623 million convention center during the height of the Great Recession; placing his political capital behind defeating an English-only referendum on the ballot, an initiative that no other city in the United States had beat.

“I did what I thought was right, I think, most of the time,” Dean said. “I didn’t follow like I was a Democratic operative. Believe me, I annoyed a lot of people.”

Before mayoral bid, Dean 'didn't even make the list'

According to Dean, running for mayor was a tougher decision than deciding to run for governor more than a decade later.

After spending most of his life in Gardner, Massachusetts, attending Columbia University in New York City and then coming to Nashville for Vanderbilt Law, Dean had forged his way into local politics while still a young assistant public defender, a job that earned him the nickname "Magic" for his ability to persuade juries.

Greg Hinote, who would become a close friend of Dean's and serve as his deputy mayor, remembers him coming into Mayor Richard Fulton's office in the late 1980s, asking Fulton and Hinote to take him around and introduce him to leaders in Nashville's business community.

While commuting back and forth between Boston and Nashville for several months in early 2016, holding adjunct teaching positions at both Belmont University and Boston University, Dean had more time to think about what would come next.

He’d catch a Southwest flight every Monday evening after teaching U.S. presidential election history at Belmont. He would teach in Boston on Tuesdays and Thursdays as the university’s first Mayor in Residence through its Initiative on Cities.

Dean knew the outcome of the 2016 presidential election would play a role in his decision. As he watched Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders pick up traction at one point, Dean questioned whether a “moderate, pro-business guy” like himself would be the right brand for the party.

If Hillary Clinton did win, he knew, it would make it difficult for Democrats during the 2018 midterms.

He went on a vacation to Italy with Davis and some friends, hiking and cycling around the country.

Dean spoke with strategists to figure out whether he had a shot.

The advice given to him by Purcell when Dean first ran for elected public defender in 1990 still rang in his mind: “You’ve got to figure out whether there’s a pathway to win."

Unlike when Dean decided to run for mayor, he was “on the list” this time, widely expected to put his hat in the ring when Haslam’s final term was up.

When he met with Fitzhugh, Dean was ready

Craig Fitzhugh and Dean barely knew each other before their January 2017 meeting at the Hermitage Hotel.

Fitzhugh, the House minority leader from West Tennessee, didn’t realize how prepared Dean already was to enter the race.

Dean would announce the next month.

“I guess I was a little naive to think you just jump in there like that, although I had been considering it for a while,” Fitzhugh said. “He obviously had been planning and was much better prepared at that stage of the game than I was.”

As the two Democrats met for lunch at the hotel’s restaurant — “a spot where a lot of people have had that lunch,” Fitzhugh noted — it was fairly obvious to the handful of other politicians they ran into what was taking place.

House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, stopped by as the men ate and made a joke about the meeting.

While six months went by before Fitzhugh, wanting to first complete the legislative session, would announce his candidacy, Dean quickly entered the race.

Leading up to the primary, Fitzhugh campaigned as “a Democrat who isn't scared to be one." But despite his folksy Tennessee charm, Fitzhugh's message didn't have the widespread appeal of Dean’s moderate pragmatism.

In August, Dean won the Democratic primary with roughly 75 percent of the vote.

GOP 'not Bill Haslam's party' anymore

Throughout his campaign and increasingly in recent weeks, Dean has sought to portray himself as being closely aligned with Haslam, highlighting similarities in their policy positions and praising the governor's decision-making.

Haslam endorsed Lee soon after the Williamson County businessman won the GOP primary.

“Bill Haslam couldn’t even be a Republican candidate right now,” Dean said. “He couldn’t. He couldn’t win the Senate seat, probably. It’s too much of a Tea Party party now. It’s the party of Trump. It’s not Bill Haslam’s party, anyway.”

In Dean’s mind, Haslam and Harwell, who ran unsuccessfully in the Republican gubernatorial primary, “at least kept it halfway in the middle of the road,” serving as a check on Tennessee’s supermajority Republican legislature.

They worked behind the scenes to hold back some controversial Republican legislation, specifically Tennessee’s attempt at a transgender bathroom bill.

Following in the footsteps of Bredesen, the campaign recently launched a Republicans and Independents for Dean coalition to reach out to undecided voters. The committee is chaired by Mike Curb, former co-chair of Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign and Republican lieutenant governor of California.

As Dean puts it, “the great opportunity in American politics is the center,” and it’s possible that as the GOP moves rightward, Democrats also could veer too far to the left.

“I have a vision,” Dean said. “My vision is we become the center-left party. But center being a big part of that. And the vision of it being the left-wing party would not be a vision that I share."

'With Karl, you get what you see'

Inside the Green Hills home where Dean and Davis have lived since 1991, stacks of books — about 200 of them — cover their bedroom floor. They’re books Dean has read so far this year, from fiction authors Stephen King and Richard Powers to Bob Woodward’s “Fear,” a recently published expose on Donald Trump’s White House.

Dean has succeeded as a politician, despite not being an extrovert.

Throughout Dean's career in politics — one that required him to be out and about most nights as mayor and certainly on the campaign trail for governor — Davis said her husband of 35 years has remained a family man.

Before becoming mayor in 2007, he’d sometimes cook dinner for Davis and their three children, making a “pretty good” chili, spaghetti and chicken piccata.

He brings Davis coffee in bed every day — heating up the milk in the microwave — and continues to do the grocery shopping each Sunday morning at the Green Hills Kroger.

On early campaign mornings, he leaves the coffee on the nightstand in an insulated tumbler.

While Dean has supported Davis in her career as an attorney, she said she has always admired Dean's life in public service and ability to stick to his guns.

She cites the criticism he received when as mayor Dean implemented controversial education reforms at failing Nashville schools, making the teachers union "furious" with some of his proposals involving charter schools.

"He got so much pushback from Democrats," Davis recalled. "He still gets pushback from Democrats."

She knows that some of the decisions he made as a Democrat were "maybe not politically advantageous, but they are the right thing to do," she said.

From Davis' perspective, the moderate brand of politics Dean has pushed throughout the campaign isn't merely capitalizing on what he believes voters want. She said it's the type of Democrat Dean has always been: one who "doesn't couch things in what's politically correct."

"I think he is who he is," she said. "With Karl, you get what you see."

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.